Electric Football Lives!

There will be electricity in the air when your football team — be it Pop Warner, high school, college or NFL — lines up for kick-off in a few weeks.

But for guys like Mark Villanueva and John Rowan, there’s always electricity.

Cheesy cliché? Probably. But it seemed like the best way to introduce you to the Alamo City Electric Football League.

Yes. You read that correctly. Electric football.

It’s the sports board game that harkens back to the pre-computer games of yesteryear. If you pre-date video games, this was the indoor sports experience of your life. It consisted of two teams of painted plastic figurines, emulating your favorite team, vibrating across a green metal playing field that was put in motion by an electric motor.

Lots of guys got one, tried to figure it out, and then stuck it under the bed. Years later, mom sold it at a garage sale.

End of story? Not quite.

And that wasn’t the end of that

A handful of guys in San Antonio — and a surprisingly large number of guys around the country — never put their game under the bed. They kept playing. And they got good. And then they got serious and formed competitive leagues.

It’s an unusual development in the history of the game, which goes back to 1947, said Michael Landsman, owner of Miggle Toys, manufacturer of the game. Norman Sas, founder of Tudor Metal Products, discovered a European horse racing game that utilized the same vibrating motor concept, Landsman told me in an interview years ago. Sas saw the potential for American sports games and electric football was born. The first game came out in 1949, and by the 60s, it was a million-seller.

Video games killed it. Sales plummeted. Miggle made a last-ditch attempt at saving the game by staging a Chicago tournament in the early 90s. Hoping for a handful of fans, Landsman told me, 300 showed up.

Electric football, known by its distinctive “bzzzzt” sound, was back.

A game for men. Very small men.

Villanueva, 48, began playing the game when he got one for Christmas. He was 11. He would play it for a few days, put it up for a few months, pull it out and play for a few days, put it up again, in a cycle that continued throughout most of his adult life. He read about a San Antonio league in the Miggle newsletter, and in 1999 got involved.

Players are figures attached to bases that, in a way, resemble toothbrushes: Hard plastic with soft-plastic bristles on the bottom. The direction of the bristles dictates the direction the player moves. The bristles of old figures had to be manually manipulated. Newer ones come with built-in dials to control the bristles.

And coaches can adjust the weight of the players by adding golf tape to the bases. Linemen are heavier, while backs and receivers are lighter. Coaches have to figure out what players to put in a game, based on their movement, at key times.

Are you ready for some football?

Electric football combines the thrill of real football with the detail-oriented wonkery of a strategy board game. There’s a real clock, and in league games, a real referee. Game play is an elaborate ritual intended to emulate a real game:

• The offensive coach has 40 seconds to set up his team with 7 men on the line and 4 in the backfield. The defense gets an extra 10 seconds.

• The offense’s coach calls a run or pass. For a run, the switch is clicked and the “bzzzzttt-ing” begins. If the ball carrier’s base is touched by a defense player’s base, he’s down and the play is over.

• If it’s a pass, a quarterback with a magnetic base is substituted. Then the “bzzzzttt-ing” begins and goes on for 3 seconds.

• At that point, the game is turned off. The offense coach must throw the ball, or run it.

• If it’s run, the runner is put in and the defense can redirect players. The game restarts.

• If it’s a pass, a QB with a hinged throwing arm is substituted. Three offensive players can be moved to accommodate the play. The defense can move players, depending on which offensive players move.

• The offensive coach then uses the hinged throwing arm to pass the tiny felt football.

• If it’s incomplete, the play ends. But if the ball hits any part of the receiver, it’s complete and the game is turned back on until he’s tackled or scores.

They do this for every play. The original game boards were small, but guys like Villanueva built fields to scale, corresponding to the size of the players. The 3-by-5 fields make the passing game harder, but add another layer of authenticity to it.

Villanueva loves it.

“I like the competitive nature of the game,” he said. “If anyone has ever coached any sport, there’s something about the competition and being in there and coaching that makes it fun. You’re coaching yourself to be a perfectionist.”

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